A Purple Merchant in Rangoon

In 1813, Adoniram Judson sailed from America with India fixed firmly in his mind. He would plant the gospel there, he was certain. But the East India Company refused him entry. Doors slammed shut. Judson found himself rerouted to Rangoon, Burma — a place he had never planned to go, among a people he had never studied, speaking a language he did not know.

For six grueling years, he saw almost no fruit. Then, in 1819, a small group gathered beneath a bamboo shelter called a zayat — an open-air meeting place by the roadside, not unlike the riverbank outside Philippi where Paul found Lydia. The first Burmese convert, Maung Nau, stepped forward. Others followed. What began as a divine detour became one of the most remarkable missionary movements in Asian history. Today, millions of Burmese Christians trace their faith back to a man who never intended to set foot in their country.

When Paul saw the vision of the Macedonian man, he could not have known that his first convert in Europe would be a businesswoman named Lydia, listening quietly by a river. The Almighty rarely explains the route in advance. He simply says, "Go there." And when we obey — even when the destination makes no sense to us — we discover that God has already been preparing hearts we never knew existed.